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Lot Essay
On a visit to the Colonial Exhibition in Marseilles during the summer of 1906, André Derain witnessed a performance by dancers from the retinue of the Cambodian King Sissowath, an experience which would prove revelatory to the artist, fuelling his imagination and sparking the creation of a series of works which take dance as their central theme. A surge of interest in non-Western dance had swept through France at the turn of the 20th Century, heralding the development of a new, dramatically expressive language of movement rooted in dance as a means of worship, ecstasy and emotional release. It was this liberated, uninhibited, expressive form of dance that Derain set out to capture in his watercolours, drawings and oils over the course of 1906, which culminated in his grand composition La danse.
In La gavotte a cast of anonymous figures frolic through a timeless Arcadian landscape, each character lost in the rhythm of the dance, their bodies cast into strange poses and movements that represent their own individual response to the music. There is no choreography here, no set pattern of steps to follow – they are consumed by the energy of the dance alone, and they each react in their own personal way. While some figures are clothed, the majority are naked, enhancing the impression that this is an ancient ritual that Derain has stumbled upon. The figure to the far right of the group adopts a sinuous, serpentine pose that appears directly linked to the central character of La danse, with the extreme curving of her back, semi-crouched position, and elegant crossing of legs echoed in the later composition. The free, fluid brushstrokes that Derain uses to capture the scene, meanwhile, add to the spontaneous, flowing, atmosphere of the dance, as if the figures may begin to move of their own accord at any moment and swirl across the page.
La gavotte was purchased by one of the leading collectors and promoters of modern art in America during the opening decades of the twentieth century, John Quinn, who by the 1920s owned the largest single collection of modern European paintings in the world. Through his vehement opposition to the censorship of modern art and literature, as well as his support of the 1913 Armory Show in New York, Quinn was responsible for introducing American audiences to some of the most important artists and movements in 20th Century art.
In La gavotte a cast of anonymous figures frolic through a timeless Arcadian landscape, each character lost in the rhythm of the dance, their bodies cast into strange poses and movements that represent their own individual response to the music. There is no choreography here, no set pattern of steps to follow – they are consumed by the energy of the dance alone, and they each react in their own personal way. While some figures are clothed, the majority are naked, enhancing the impression that this is an ancient ritual that Derain has stumbled upon. The figure to the far right of the group adopts a sinuous, serpentine pose that appears directly linked to the central character of La danse, with the extreme curving of her back, semi-crouched position, and elegant crossing of legs echoed in the later composition. The free, fluid brushstrokes that Derain uses to capture the scene, meanwhile, add to the spontaneous, flowing, atmosphere of the dance, as if the figures may begin to move of their own accord at any moment and swirl across the page.
La gavotte was purchased by one of the leading collectors and promoters of modern art in America during the opening decades of the twentieth century, John Quinn, who by the 1920s owned the largest single collection of modern European paintings in the world. Through his vehement opposition to the censorship of modern art and literature, as well as his support of the 1913 Armory Show in New York, Quinn was responsible for introducing American audiences to some of the most important artists and movements in 20th Century art.